Politics this week

America reacts

In response to the bombing of its East African embassies, America fired some 80 cruise missiles at an Islamist training complex in Afghanistan, run by a militant Saudi dissident, Osama bin Laden, and at a drug factory in Sudan that the Americans claimed was helping to make chemical weapons.

Britain and America agreed that the two Libyan suspects in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing could be tried under Scottish law, by a panel of three Scottish judges, in the Netherlands. Libya, which had originally proposed an international panel, appeared to respond positively.

Angola and Zimbabwe sent troops and aircraft to help Congo's Laurent Kabila put down a rebellion, backed by Rwanda and Uganda. Kisangani, a city held by the rebels, came under attack; the rebels launched an assault on the capital, Kinshasa.

Imperial command

In the midst of an economic crisis, Russia's president, Boris Yeltsin, sacked Sergei Kiriyenko, 36, his prime minister of only five months, and reappointed his 60-year-old predecessor, Viktor Chernomyrdin, who, Mr Yeltsin then declared, should now be considered his heir. The rouble plummeted even further.

In the wake of the Omagh bombing, the British and Irish prime ministers recalled their parliaments from summer recess to rush through new security measures. These were aimed at imprisoning dissident Irish republicans, who have continued their campaign of violence despite the Good Friday agreement. Civil-liberties groups criticised the measures.

The prime minister of France's previous government, Alain Juppé, a Gaullist, was put under investigation as part of a probe into alleged payroll abuses in Paris when Jacques Chirac, France's current president, was the city's mayor and Mr Juppé its finance director.

Disenchanted

Politicians in both parties continued to react to President Clinton's admissions in the Lewinsky affair. The leader of the House Democrats, Dick Gephardt, refused to rule out the possibility of impeachment; Democrats in general distanced themselves from the president.

Janet Reno, the attorney-general, at last announced an inquiry into whether an independent counsel should be appointed to decide whether Vice-President Al Gore broke campaign-finance laws during the 1996 campaign.

Canada's federalists and its Quebec separatists both claimed victory after a Supreme Court ruling that the province could not, in law, secede unilaterally—but that a “clear majority” for secession in a referendum there would impose a duty to negotiate on the rest of Canada.

The politics of Mexico's bank bail-out grew nastier still. The left-wing PRD claimed proof that some loans by a now bust bank went into the ruling PRI's 1994 election chest. The right-wing PAN said banks must bear 100% of the cost of any loans that Fobaproa, the bail-out fund, cannot get repaid. Even the PRI says 30%.

Peru's president Alberto Fujimori sacked his armed-forces chief, General Nicolas Hermoza. He also reappointed as prime minister Alberto Pandolfi, holder of the post till June.

While the north-east of Brazil baked in drought, plans to fill a hydro-power reservoir in its south-west raised protests: the mighty, and tourist-drawing, Iguacu falls would lose most of their flow for seven or eight weeks from mid-September, said the Argentine province that shares them with Brazil and Paraguay.

Asia dissents

AP

Malaysia's highest court gave an 18-month jail term to Lim Guan Eng, a prominent opposition politician who had used a pamphlet to criticise the attorney-general and the police. Also barred from Parliament for five years after his release, he will miss the next two general elections.

Satisfied with continuing economic reforms in Indonesia, the IMF released another $1 billion of its rescue package. Former President Suharto's son-in-law was sacked from the army and could face trial for the kidnapping and torture of dissidents. On Sulawesi island rival factions fought in the street for control of a minority party.

Myanmar's leading democracy campaigner, Aung San Suu Kyi, ended her second roadside protest, exhausted after 13 days. The military government said it would neither talk to her, nor allow the opposition to form its own parliament.

Protests outside parliament in Phnom Penh would continue, said Cambodia's opposition leader, Prince Norodom Ranariddh. Up to 5,000 people gathered to demand that votes in last month's election be recounted.